Truth and Citizenship

Author: Simon Duffy

At the beginning of 2020, just before the COVID pandemic swept the world, Simon Duffy gave the Norah Fry Centre And Sue Porter Lecture on the topic of Truth and Citizenship.

In this talk Simon reflects on the problem of advancing the cause of justice when the habit of lying in politics seems to have become endemic. This problem is particularly severe for disabled people, for while on the surface institutions, like the UK Government, declare their support for disability rights, in reality spending cuts and welfare reforms target disabled people for harm and injustice. What is the value of human and disability rights when governments can undermine them without consequence?

Moreover Simon questions whether we've really tried to understand what it would take for human rights to be taken seriously. Perhaps human rights need to be treated as only one part of our moral ecology. Perhaps we can only expect to have meaningful rights if we also nurture citizenship, community and love.

Simon's talk has been published in the Need for Roots series, which is a collection of papers exploring the deeper meaning of citizenship, inclusion and other values important to our shared work.

In addition, Professor David Abbott at the Norah Fry Centre provides a useful Foreword to the paper.

Read and download the free pdf in your browser, link below.

The publisher is Citizen Network Research. Truth and Citizenship © Simon Duffy 2022.

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• Truth and Citizenship PDF | 705kb